


Labyrinth

by JoeKusak



Series: Class 777 [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Akimichi Choji & Aburame Shino Friendship, All friends with eachother, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe Found Family, Anger, Bamboo, Caterpillar - Freeform, Confusion, Corn - Freeform, Depressed Uzumaki Naruto, Depression, Family Issues, Feelings, Found, Found Family, Friendship, Good Friends, Guardian Sensei, Happy Naruto Uzamaki, Haruno Sakura & Yamanaka Ino Friendship, Hurt Naruto, Hurt/Comfort, Jiraiya Sensei, Kintsugi, Konoha 11 - Freeform, Konoha 12 - Freeform, Konoha 13 - Freeform, Lost - Freeform, Lost and Found, Map - Freeform, Marco Polo - Freeform, Mental Disorders, Naruto Healing, Naruto and Sakura - Freeform, Naruto and Sasuke - Freeform, Naruto writing, Other, Pervy Sage, Rookie nine - Freeform, Sad, Sad Uzumaki Naruto, Sakura and Ino - Freeform, Shino and Choji, Support, Tag, Teacher Sensei - Freeform, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto Friendship, Uzumaki Naruto & Haruno Sakura Friendship, Writing, assignment, corn maze, expressing feelings, family love, gold - Freeform, kakashi sensei - Freeform, maze, mind, rookie 9, rope, tile - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-04 21:14:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18820861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoeKusak/pseuds/JoeKusak
Summary: Uzumaki Naruto (Future Ruler of Everything)Pro. Jiraiya (Pervy Sage)Class 777 (class mascot: Monsters)Konaha Academy (A school, one of which the government forces children to go)Title: LabyrinthPeople use the glass of water game to describe how others perceive the world.  Half full and you’re an optimist who’s ready to take on the day.  Someone who sees things half empty is a cynic and focuses on the negatives.  I don’t think this is a good way to judge how people see the world.  This method has flaws.  What if the cup was full of gross liquid?  Then the positive and negative position would be reversed.  Things aren’t as simple or as basic as good or bad….life is more complicated and complex than that.





	Labyrinth

**Author's Note:**

> "Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about."  
> Be kind.  
> Always.

Bamboo:  
Running. I’m running. I must get away from them. Where to go? Where to go? I pull my partner’s arm to the left. We stumble around, tripping over each-others feet but don’t stop running. He asks if we need to stop. I shake my head, slightly dizzy, and we keep running. We can start to hear their footsteps. We can hear their laughter and taunts. This pushes us to go faster. We make a sharp turn, and my partner whips me toward his side to stop my running. In front of us is a complete and wonderful mess. As far as I can see down this path is a flood of thick brown mud. My partner tries to pull me down another path, but I stop him. We can use this. We make are way through the mud by balancing each other through this ankle deep slop. We make it successfully to a thinner area of mud when we hear the voices only a few yards away. We still can’t see them, yet we throw caution to the wind as we splash our way forward. It only takes seconds before we hear the owners of the voices wipe out. They are no longer laughing. They are pissed and probably all trying to, but failing to stand. I can’t help but laugh. What else could I do?  
We don’t stop though. We’re not “those” stupid people on T.V. We run and run and run, trying to find a dark and secluded place to hide. Rustle. Rustle. Abruptly, we both stop and drop to the ground. “I like Hina!...I like Hina!....I like Hina!” We hear this coming from ahead of us. As the one making the sound gets closer, we hear another voice in between each “I like Hina!” It’s an older girls voice, probably late middle school or early high school. She’s speaking in a funny, made-up accent. She keeps saying things like, “You like Hints?” or “You like hens?” Clearly, these two are not our enemies. So, we stand back up as they approach. They stop dead in their tracks. I don’t blame them. Two boys covered in mud, sticks, and whatever else, appeared out of nowhere and are panting like they just ran a marathon. We both put are fingers to our mouths in the universal sign for quiet.  
The older girl is the first one to do anything besides stare. She gives us a weird sort of smile, looks down at the little girl holding her hand and says, “you like Hair?’ The little girl, forgetting about us, immediately reacts in aghast that her sister still hasn’t gotten what she had been saying. She speaks slowly, enunciating every syllable. She smirks and walks on, passing us as if nothing weird had happened. We both breathe a sigh of relief and are thankful that there are still good people in the world. We study our surroundings trying to determine if this is where we should hide. There’s green all around us, but it’s too bright here. We keep walking attempting to get to the center where it is sure to be darker. After a couple more minutes of walking, we start to notice the temperature change. I smile at him when we see the fork in the path. It’s not exactly a fork but more like a twig bending off a branch. We head down the small path and crouch just like we had been taught to; “Family Kill Circle” style.  
We wait and scan the area for anything unusual. When everything is quiet like this and you’re waiting for something to happen, it feels like you have gained super powers because all your senses are on overload. It feels like eternity before we hear or see anything. What we finally see is not welcomed. In between the branches that are between my partner and I, is them. The enemies. Only two of them. It’s Team Whispering Death. I am pleased with the way that they are covered in mud. They have stopped in an effort to come up with a plan to find us. My partner and I have stopped breathing because they are so close.  
They decide to meet up with the other two to see if they know where we are. Just as I start to relax, the Valkyrie bends down to tie her shoe. The reason the green eyed girl chose such a peculiar nickname came to light the second she chose. Valkyrie: Chooser of the Slain. I am not exaggerating when I say that from where we are, I could count her eyelashes. If she were to just turn her head slightly, we’d be caught. But as luck has it, Nightshade says something to get her looking at her, and then they are gone. Nightshade, befitting enough. The worlds most deadly plant. We look at each other and start doing that weird pant-laugh-relief thing, while smiling like idiots. We stay in our position only seconds longer before everything starts moving really fast. We hear grumbling. Branches are moving, and there they are, team S and S; Sweet Spicy and Shadow. Technically it should be SS and S, but whatever. Sweet and Spicy's name explains him perfectly. While Shadow was unanimously chosen by everyone else. The reason? There is no way in the world he can see anything while wearing sunglasses 24/7. Shadow huffs exasperated, “This is where you’ve been.” He then grunts and puts his hands up as if casting a spell.  
We waste no time. We bolt. We try shaking them off on the turns, but it’s not working. Our strategy was to avoid and evade. Outrunning them was not part of our plan. Dang long legs! They are on our heels, and my shouting stupid things at them is not working to distract them. I look over at my partner, Pristine Ally Cat or Cat for short, and feel the thump of a hand on my back. Sweet Spicy, who’s still a little ways behind us, starts laughing. He shouts at the top of his lungs. “YOU’RE IT!!” Ah, the words we were dreading for so long. The time is pushing twenty minutes. For twenty minutes we were not found in the Bamboo Maze. I laugh maniacally in my head. Ha, a new record.  
The tables have turned in this game of tag now, though. We are no longer the hunted; we are the hunters. While I still try to catch my breath, Cat tells them that they have two minutes to run. They don’t hesitate. 

~

Perception: A way of regarding, understanding, or interpreting something; a mental impression.  
The world is seen differently through many eyes; eyes that see the world their own way. If I were to ask you what that story was about at the beginning, you’d probably have guessed some sort of bullying or kidnapping was taking place. Perception is how we interpret the world from our individual viewpoint. People use the glass of water game to describe how others perceive the world. Half full and you’re an optimist who’s ready to take on the day. Someone who sees things half empty is a cynic and focuses on the negatives. I don’t think this is a good way to judge how people see the world. This method has flaws. What if the cup was full of gross liquid? Then the positive and negative position would be reversed. Things aren’t as simple or as basic as good or bad….life is more complicated and complex than that. That is why to kids playing tag in a maze with their friends, they may feel that they are being hunted in a forest of bamboo by a troupe of crazy assassins. 

~

Tile:  
“Left turn!” “Left turn.” “Left.”  
“Oh for crying out loud, you don’t need to say that every time!” -Shadow  
“LEFT!” Five voices say in unison. I snicker at the sight before me. I clear my throat loudly and speak, “Attention all! Everyone must pretend to be lost in honor of poor 'Grrrr roar bark and other animal noises' Growl, who is not here to get lost for us….GO!” All five of them start to scream about, demonstrating how lost they are with the occasional “Left turn!” I zoom the camera in on the sign above the colored, patterned ground. It reads “Tile Maze: Left turns only” and end the video.

~

Maze:  
What is the definition of the word maze? As I search the internet for a definition, I find two examples: 1. a network of paths and hedges designed as a puzzle through which one has to find a way. 2. to be dazed and confused. I smirk at the second one realizing that the word amazing must come from the word maze. Well, a tile maze is barely either of those things. It doesn’t have hedges, and it doesn’t make you dazed. If you want to stretch it, it sort of has paths, and you do try to find a way through it. I looked deeper into the word to see if I could find a definition more closely related to the tile maze. The one I thought suited it best was the psychology definition. Maze: “A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzlers through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching (“unicursal”) patterns that lead unambiguously though a convoluted layout to a goal.” 

~

Rope:  
Hmm. I don’t quite get the boundaries, rules, or goals for this, but I have no doubt we’ll win. After we said go, we all just kind of started running. It’s annoying though because these “check marks” have no validation that they were actually checked. Just click the buttons that don’t work. We see the other teams are going slightly faster than us, so I grab Cat's arm and duck under the first rope. We expertly fandangle ourselves under the ropes like you would in those red-roped waiting lines. Team Whispering Death identified our battle strategy and joined in as well. Team S and S are usually rule followers, but as they see that we’re feet away from the exit, they join in as well. We, Team Moose, may have lost this fight, but it felt like we won the battle for getting S and S to bend the rules. Don't even get me started on why are team name is Moose.

~

Books vs Movies:  
My long time friend Shadow once asked me “Why read the book when you’ve already watched the movie?” My answer was immediate, “Well, why breathe when you know that you’re going to die?” We thought this was hilarious, but it’s one of those things that is funny, but it is also like one of those big a questions. Why breathe? Why live? Why do anything? I kind of have an answer. It’s not some super inspirational reason, like “because it’s the right thing.” I’m going to say that it’s the same reason you run into a rope maze attempting to get out first.

~

Corn:  
As always we are paired up using the buddy system. Today we have to scramble our regular pairings for training. The teams are as of follows: Right Eye (name because that's all we see of his face) + Sweet Spicy, Shadow + Valkyrie, Goofy Fox (which is me, but I demand to just be called Fox not "Goofy Fox") + Night Shade, and Cat and Growl. The maze is actually going great. Nightshade and I had already run through three different aisles of corn (ones that were not on the designated path) and had found an extraordinary new friend. He was an orange and black fluffy caterpillar (Shadow of course being our bug guy new what kind he was when we showed him, but I don’t remember what it was). We named him Fluffy Bob. There is a very good reason behind the name choice. It was because he was fluffy and Bob is one of the best names. We’d been living happily with our new friend who was chilling on a corn cob. Disaster struck when an angry old man on a tractor started yelling at us. Apparently we weren’t supposed to pick the corn. We apologized and ran as fast as we could back into the stalks feeling like ninjas. Bob was not safe in the corn with there being angry tractor men and possible kids who would “accidentally” kill him. We set him free on a tree. We had a goodbye ceremony and everything.  
Right when we got back in the maze is when things started to get screwy. We somehow all found each-other in the maze and four of us wanted to ditch. The ditchers were Shadow, Right Eye, Growl, and Sweet Spicy. The rest of us wanted to stay so we split up accordingly. We had fun. We may or may not have picked more corn, tried to peel and then throw in the field after to dispose of the evidence. After about 20min of playing we had found our way out of the maze. All of us were there. That is until Valkyrie ran back in between the corn stalks. I yelled at her to stay with us. I assumed she did. I should have realized that when you assume all it means is ass for u and me. It was at this exact time the teachers did a head count; 7 kids, one missing. I knew it had to be Valkyrie so I also head counted with name. Yes, Valkyrie was missing. As I think back to this time, I remember that there was no hesitation. We all, all of us, stormed that corn maze screaming her name. We went through the actual path and up and down the rows of corn yelling as loud as we could, searching. Every person met in that maze by any of us was berated with the question of “Have you seen a pink haired girl?” I remember exactly how I found her. I was running in between corn stalks when she yelled back. After a few turns there she was standing in the middle of the path. We run to each-other in the same way romance movies do, and hugged. While I hugged her I know I was yelling at her as well even if I can’t recall what I said. Immediately I yell as loud as I can to the rest of the search party that she was found. The message was then passed on like a game of telephone that actually worked. We all make it to the exit. 

~

Lost:  
When you are lost you feel lost. You feel like you’re on another planet where everyone on it is out to get you. Trust me I know what lost feels like. For one thing I have next to no directional skills. A big part of feeling lost is confusion and worry. The thoughts of “How did this happen? And “Will I ever find my way back?” resonate in your brain. Then you start to think deeper. Wondering if I stay lost will they notice? If I’m gone will it be better for them? Do I want to stay lost? If that thought ever crosses your mind, know that it just means that more than anything you want to be found.

~

Map:  
You think having a map while lost in a maze would have some benefit, right? Well, not for us. We’ve been wondering in circles for the past hour. A 22 acre corn maze designed to look like a fall scene with the farms title above it this maze has 10 different check points that you’ll get a unique hole punch mark for. Where do you put your hole punch you might ask. Your handy dandy map that’s where. Our team of four, “Eye Spy,” was not doing too hot on finding any check points. We’d only found 3. The reason we chose the name team “Eye Spy” was simple. We continuously were playing eye spy….but we were in a corn maze. Here’s about how each round went:

Fox: I spy with my little eye something brown.  
Cat: Corn.  
Fox: Gah. You got it.  
Cat: I spy something that looks like a vertical branch….

You get the idea. This had been going on the entire time. I shouldn’t be surprised we were so lost. I clear my throat to get my teams attention. “This time I’ve got it! We are, once again, in the letter “R.” My team groans, asking how we were stuck in the stupid “R” again. We all crowd around the tiny map trying to figure out if that’s true. After a quick debate we decide we’d either be in the “R” if we turn 3 lefts and find a check, but if we didn’t find a check than we’d be in the part of the maze that was shaped like corn. We take the lefts and find nothing. We are about to rejoice, thinking we finally know where we are when Cat turns his head to the right. There’s a check point. We all should be upset that we are so fricken lost that we were completely wrong with the map, but none of us are. The reason; because we just, albeit inadvertently, found a new check point. We sprint over and all tag the pole believing this was part of checking the check point procedure. I hand the map to Nightshade while Valkyrie handles the hole punch. Cat and I were banned form helping with this part after the second check point where we had tried and succeeded in hole punching the middle of our map where the check should have been. Turns out there’s a line to hole punch on at the bottom of the map. Whoops. As we are doing our victory dance we hear Growl's voice calling us through the corn. Something to be said about this corn maze is that it was not the creators first rodeo. In between multiple spots of corn, especially near check points, the y had barbed wire. So, even if you were as close as just on the other side of some corn, you still had to go around to find the paths entrance. Growl's asking us how we got there. This was a race and right now he’s not on our side, so we have a group meeting. After our loud whispering that he could hear, we have a verdict; Give and Take. A motto of ours. If we tell him how to get to us, he shows us how to get to one of his check marks. He agreed. Check point status from 3 to 6 in less than 10 min. It is a known fact that people who were born with poor eyesight think that the way they see is normal. It is 100% true. At this time I was the only on the team with glasses, having them nearly my entire life. I'm basically color-blind. We find out a couple years after this that the younger two were both nearly as blind as bats. So as we search the sky to find reference points to walk in certain directions, 3 out of the 4 of us can’t see half the stuff that’s there. Us 3 decide that Cat just must have really good eyes, not that our eyes are that bad, his nickname was granted to him with the help of his cat-like eyesight. Since we screwed using the map a long while ago were using the sky as our guide. We think we have the land layout; the forest side is next to the barn part of the corn, the telephone pole to the words, then the church looping building to pumpkin, and finally the barn to the entrance. Another dilemma we’re having with using the sky, besides the fact Cat's the only one who can see, is that we are insanely short. In most parts of the maze we can’t see over it. With this in mind we decide to do the “Call for the Lost;” Marco, Polo. We’ve been all yelling Marco in unison for the past 5 min when finally someone answers. They are not part of our pack though. We walk a ways away before start “Marcoing” again. Nothing. With none of us in the group having a watch or phone we assume we’ve been in here for about 2 hours. We sit down on the edge of the path using the corn for shade and rest. Instead of coming up with our next plan, we start talking about one of our favorite franchise, Harry Potter. We sit there, leaning on each other for support, talking about how all of us agreed Fred shouldn't have died and how each our own characters were the best. As we stand up we are in our full-fledged wizard zone and have gone into the role-playing zone. For the readers benefit, I won’t use the names of the character in the show to address ourselves like we do in real life. We have a thousand nick-names we respond to. 

“Me, Fred Weasley, who is not dead by the way, thinks we should use the stink bombs me and George created to get unsuspecting maze goers with." –Fox  
"Stop thinking like that Weasle Second! We need to get out of this maze! My father will not hear about this shamefull venture!” –Valkyrie  
"I'm Cedric Diggory and I'm handsome and popular! I do think we need to get out of this maze. Harry, you're the Griffondor. Lead us out of here." -Nightshade  
“How is this my life?” –Cat 

By hour 3 we are all pretty exhausted. We tried so many way to just get out of the maze; retrace our steps, using the map again, asking people, following people, you name it. The problem with asking people is that there are far and few of them. The ones we do find don’t give much help. They just kind of point a direction and say “That way.” Once again, we look like a train wreck that’s covered in sweat. I remember being pretty hungry and possibly dying of thirst too. With that said we all were kind of a mix between grumpy and loopy. It’s a weird combination. We’d say something relatively mean and be scowling then we’d all burst out giggling. After some more time of trudging around randomly, we run into a boy looking to be around 8 wearing an extremely long scarf. He looks at us and asks if we were ok. I tell him that we were looking for a way out. He nods and gestures for us to follow him. We do, putting our trust in this kid. He explains as we’re walking each way that we’re going, and that he’s taking us to the entrance. In, I kid you not, mere minutes we’re there. We all explode thanks-yous on him and then lay down in the grass. He says it’s fine, and runs back in the maze.

~

Mind:  
Noun 1: The Element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought. Noun 2: A persons intellect. Verb 1: Be distressed annoyed, or worried by. “I don’t mind the rain.” Verb 2: Regard as important; feel concern about. “Never mind the opinion of polls.” Psychology: Is about mental processes, though and consciousness. The body is about the physical aspects of the brain-neurons and how the brain is structure. Urban Dictionary: A terrible thing to waste. Egypt: The mind of Egypt presents an unprecedented account of the mainsprings of Egyptian civilization—the ideals, values, mentalities, belief systems, and aspirations that shaped the first territorial state in human history. A Kids Definition: that which is responsible for one’s thoughts and feelings.

I feel like the human mind is a maze. A real messed up maze, but a maze. The twist and turns of it sometimes blur perception. The walls sometimes feel so tall that you can’t even see over them. Sometimes it feels like everyone is out to get you and will never stop chasing. Sometimes you wonder what’s the point of walking if you never get out. You hear what people say, about having a specific set of directions to follow to get out, a map, one of which that you’ve never truly been able to read right. You think that no matter what you do you’ll remain lost, sometimes. 

~

Depression:  
Is a mental health disorder characterized by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities, causing significant impairment in daily life. Depression is like your maze fills with smoke. Smoke, not fog. It’s dark and you can’t see. Your eyes burn and you cry. What you feel isn’t just sadness. It’s the feeling of being lost and never being found. The smoke suffocates you, making it hard to breathe. You heart rate speeds up as your brain activates the “Fight or Flight Response.” You can’t decide which one to do though. If you try to run, you have no idea where you can go. If you try to fight, the question becomes who do you fight? There’s no one to blame for this except yourself and your own messed up mind. You feel lost and you wonder if you’ll ever be found.

~

Sense:  
A feeling that something is the case.  
Simply put, mazes don’t make much sense. What does make sense though is nicknames. Something special to call someone that’s close to you. Jokes make enough sense. They are things that are funny or sarcastic just to make someone laugh. Games, they make sense. Random activities or challenges designed just for joy. Helping someone just cause it’s nice makes sense. Even if the person doesn’t show what it meant to them, you know they felt seen. Kids seem to understand this.  
I may get confused and lost, but if I remember going into a maze just for the sake of getting lost I feel more than ok. I may not have all the answers or reasons for anything, and I can’t make the thoughts go away, but I think that this is enough to keep walking through.

So as I sat here contemplating what to write, I think more closely about what Jiraiya sensei asked us to write. He said to all of us in our “special class” to “Write about your problems to express how you feel, and so that eventually one day you’ll become free from them.” Well, I’m more than a little sure that me and if not all, than most of the class will agree that we won’t ever completely be free of whatever landed us here. It is a part of us, but that doesn’t mean that it is us. I have the perfect thing to compare it too. I broke a pot the other day (it doesn’t matter how) and was looking up ways to fix it when I came across something really weird. It was of all these broken pots, vases, and plates fixed with gold. I was really confused when I saw it the first time. So ignoring my broken pot, I researched. Turns out it’s an ancient Japanese art style for fixing broken objects. Flaws are seen as a unique piece of the objects history, which adds to its beauty. So, now I like to picture people that way. People are broken and the broken pieces are still a part of them. This doesn’t mean to just wallow in the brokenness though. It means that you have to patch yourself up and to not forget the past. As I said earlier, people don’t have to patch themselves alone.  
To answer Iruka sensei’s question,  
“my problem” is that I’m a broken pot. But the question I think should be answered is am I going to stay just like that? Hell no! I’m going to be fricken gold broken/fixed pot! Yeah, I may be lost in a messed up maze, but you know what? At least I have my friends with me.  
Hope that takes care of everything in this writing.  
  
By Naruto Uzamaki

**Author's Note:**

> Kintsugi  
> The ancient Japanese art of mending broken objects with gold.  
> It teaches us that if we choose to embrace our struggles and repair ourselves with love, we become more beautiful for having been broken.


End file.
